Monday, February 14, 2011

The bubble carousel continued to spin round and round this week, and when it stopped, four at-large bids ended up changing hands. Kansas State, VCU, Washington State, and Duquesne dropped out of the bracket, and Old Dominion, Memphis, Alabama, and Michigan State jumped in.

Old Dominion was the easiest of the four teams to put in after their convincing win at VCU over the weekend. The Monarchs are back in the field this week on the 9 line, alongside the Colonial automatic bid, George Mason. Memphis was in the field last week as the automatic bid out of Conference USA, but this week, UTEP gets the nod as the auto and Memphis is in as an at-large. We think the Tigers have a great chance to finish 12-4 in conference to go along with a top 40 RPI and a win at Gonzaga. That resume, in the eighth rated conference in the country, should be enough for them to sneak in. UTEP, meanwhile, has a home game left with Memphis, which if they win, should put them in the driver's seat to win the C-USA regular season title. (That alone might get them an at-large if they need it down the road.)The Miners also have the luxury of playing the C-USA conference tourney on their home floor, which makes them even more attractive as the auto bid.

The last two teams in - and the two bubble teams most likely to spark debate this week - are Michigan State and Alabama. The Spartans' woes are well-documented and their resume of late is certainly not pretty, but looking ahead, we still think they can finish 9-9 in conference. The key to getting to 9-9 is beating Illinois at home this weekend. If they lose that game, they might be out of the bracket for good. Unlike Michigan State, Alabama's record looks very nice on paper. What doesn't look nice is their 87 RPI and their four bad losses to go along with just two quality wins. Fortunately for the Tide, their at-large chances are more about quantity than quality at this point, and we think that they'll be able to get to 12-4 (maybe 13-3) in conference, which will be enough for a bid. Anything less than 12 wins, and they'll have to win the SEC tourney to go dancing.

We strongly considered Michigan and Gonzaga for the final two at-large spots, but we couldn't look past the Wolverines' difficult remaining schedule or the Zags' looming road game with St. Mary's. Michigan probably still has a better chance at finishing 8-10 then it does at finishing 9-9, and 8-10 won't be enough with their mediocre OOC resume. If Gonzaga can't exact some revenge and beat the Gaels 10 days from now, their only hope at a bid will be winning the WCC tourney.

There wasn't a ton of movement seed-wise this week, but there were a few notable changes. Pittsburgh replaces Ohio State as the new No. 1 overall seed, just edging Kansas because of their four Top 25 and eight Top 50 wins (Kansas has 1 Top 25 win and seven Top 50 wins; Texas has two Top 25s and seven Top 50s). After two more impressive wins last week, Georgetown moved up from a 3 to a 2 seed, and Florida and Wisconsin moved up from 4s to 3s. The biggest upgrades of the week were Vanderbilt (from a 6 to a 4), St. John's (from a 9 to a 7), and George Mason (from an 11 to a 9). The only team to fall more than one seed line was Syracuse (from a 3 to a 5).

Not with Alabama's losses to the worst team in the Big Ten (Iowa), worst team in Big East (Seton Hall and/or Providence), or Saint Peters College? They have 1 top 25 win and we all know how Kentucky plays on the road. Alabama is going to lose to Florida and/or Georgia. If they drop any other game besides that its time to put this Alabama talk to rest.

Yes, SEC fans they could go 12-4, however that shows how bad your conference is. This is NOT a tourney team when all is said and done.

Totally agree with the comments above. I don't see how Alabama is even on the radar at this point. If they are, then Coastal Carolina should be as well (and I'm by no means lobbying for Coastal Carolina).

The SEC West is atrocious and going 12-4 in it only means they lost 2-3 games they shouldn't have.

Right now they only have THREE top 100 wins and have FOUR sub-100 losses. If you assume they'll get to 12-4 there's almost no way they'll have more top 100 wins than sub-100 losses and they'll have an RPI around #78 (according to RPIForecast). That's an NCAA Tourney team? Riiiiiiiiiiight.

Unless Mike Slive or Bama's AD is on the committee, there's no way they're getting in at 12-4 and they shouldn't get in at 13-3, but could sneak into the play-in game.

The fact that Alabama is even in the discussion right now shows you how weak the bubble is going to be in a 68-team field. Three extra bids is a lot to hand out, and it brings teams with very questionable resumes (like Alabama) into the mix. If this were last year, Alabama would on the outside looking in, but this year, they're in muich better shape. We've had to adjust (and the committee is going to have to adjust) how we judge the last few at-large spots from now on, because teams with these resumes would have been left out in the cold in previous years. We have to fill the bracket with somebody, and there aren't many teams with much stronger cases than Alabama to fill that spot right now.

The big game for Alabama could very well be their first game in the SEC tourney, since it will be a likely matchup on a neutral floor with whoever finishes in 4th place in the SEC East (likely Tennessee or Kentucky).

I still think the SEC East is overrated as documented by their ability to lose to SEC West teams at home and on the road.

I agree about Michigan, I just don't see them getting to 9 conference wins. Only way they do that is if they catch Iowa fading on the road, Minnesota fading on the road, and MSU fading at home. @ Illinois and Wisconsin at home might be too much to ask of such a young team.

Another team that's usually the talk of the bubble: Florida State. With a sub-50 RPI and Chris Singleton now out for the season, will this team fall out of the bracket?

Re: the Big East, you've got four of them in the 7/10 lines and two as 2-seeds, which would result in two projected 2nd round games between Big East opponents.

Do you not account for these scheduling concerns, or is there some basis on which you see the committee ignoring convention because of the logjam? Wouldn't the committee be more inclined to bump a 7 or two down to 8, or a 10 up or down (to 9 or 11) in order to fix this?

ND-Marquette seems like a particularly egregious example because it would be the 3rd time they've played (assuming they don't meet again in the BET first).

I've never been clear on how the committee treats injuries. If Florida State wins 3 of the last 5 and finishes 11-5 in conference, but Singleton doesn't come back, how would that likely affect their resume?

If Illinois goes 3-3 down the stretch (assuming losing all road games) will that keep them around 8-9 line? They have some good wins, vs UNC and WISC, but also some bad losses that I feel may hurt them when the committee looks at their resume.

When a conference receives nine or more bids, bracketing rules are allowed to be ignored. The committee will still try to avoid third round games (formerly second round games) between conference opponents, but if unavoidable (as was the case this week), those games are OK.

If Florida State finishes 11-5 in conference, they'll get a bid regardless of Singleton's future. The committee might penalize them a seed line or so, but they wouldn't leave the 'Noles out altogether.

Re: bracketing snafus, I understand the idea that it's "unavoidable" to prevent all possible conference matchups in the round of 16, but how are the Big East matchups in the round of 32 (what is now called the "third round," I guess) unavoidable?

Again, hasn't the committee explained in the past that they've raised or lowered certain seeds to address this very concern?

Duquesne is now in fourth place in the A-10, behind Xavier, Temple, and Richmond. The Dukes fell so far this week because they really needed to win at home against Xavier on Sunday. Without that win, they aren't a very attractive at-large candidate. They still only have one Top 50 win, they have an 81 RPI, and they are no longer in control of their own destiny atop the A-10 standings. They only have one more chance now to pick up a quality win the rest of the way, and that's at Richmond in their regular season finale.

Sounds like alot of hate towards Alabama here... and ofcourse SEC bashers. Alabama deserves to be in the discussion since they are winning in a power conference. Yes the SEC West is down but they have won @Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina; they barely lost @Vandy. They are 3-1 against the much better East. They are 6-1 in the past 3 weeks and 3-1 against the RPI top 100 in that span with 0 bad losses. No other bubble team should have any gripe with Alabama since they are taking care of business now when it matters most. With Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi being their last 3 games of the season, they'll either play themselves in or out of the Big Dance.

We're 7-6 right now; we have home games left vs WVU, Rutgers, and Depaul, with road games at Nova and Gtown.

If we took care of business in the 2 home games vs Rutgers and Depaul, and drop the other 3 (we're favored tonight vs WVU, but in case we lose), 9-9 in the BE with no losses OOC (not really a whole lot of beef either; beating Mich, and MSU) should be enough, right?

If we beat WVU and finished 10-8, we're probably looking at a seed pretty close to the 5 we have right now, so I can't imagine dropping the game tonight would knock us out of the dance, and I know the bubble is weak, but ever since 2007 I have the irrational fear of being left out.

Also, were you doing this in 2007? Did you have SU in the field? I remember being stunned we weren't in, and then I went back and looked at it, and well, our case wasn't as good as I thought.

Also, RPI has both teams as 1's (right--wouldn't that be nice but I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid just yet). In Sagarin, both are two's and Pomeroy has BYU a 2 and SDSU a 3. In all cases, BYU is rated higher than SDSU.

We have SDSU ahead of BYu in anticpation of the Aztecs winning the rematch between the two teams next weekend. If that happens, SDSU will have two fewer losses than BYU heading into the Mountain West tournament.

derek slimmon, Your arguing that because they have a win over Tennessee, the 5th place team in the East, a 2 point win (lead by 20 in that game) over the fourth place team in the SEC East, and a win over the last place team in the East, that Bama should be dancing? Well hell if all you gotta do is the beat the 3 last place teams in a conference to punch your ticket why don't we just let everyone in?

Barring a monumental collapse, Syracuse is getting a bid. We understand you might be scarred from 2007 (we had the Orange in that year, btw), but this is totally different set of circumstances. The Big East was the fifth rated conference in 2007, and Syracuse would have been the seventh Big East bid. The Big East is the No. 1 rated conference this season (which makes 9-9 an acceptable record), and there are three more at-large spots available.

Long story short - Syracuse is fine. There are plenty of bubble teams across the country that would gladly trade resumes with the Orange right now.

Why is UAB not on your radar? I think their profile looks at least as good as a couple teams in the first 8 out.

It's unbelievable that Alabama is in the field at this point (and that the SEC could get 6 bids!), but it's hard to see who should be in ahead of them. They could easily go 13-3 in the SEC, and at worst they should go 12-4.Michigan St looks the shakiest of the teams in right now, because I think they're more likely to finish 8-10 in conference than 9-9 and there's a better than 50/50 chance they'll be swept by Michigan.

UAB is on our radar but looking ahead we don't like their chances. They have road games against Memphis and Southern Miss left and they already lost to both these teams at home. We can't see more than 2 C-USA teams making the Dance and both UTEP and Memphis have a better chance to be those 2 teams in the end.

The biggest thing Cinci may have going for them is that they have no bad losses. Plus they are .500 in the #1 rated conference. For the Bearcats to stay in the bracket they will need to pick up some big wins though given how brutal their remaining 6 Big East games are. If they can manage to get to 9-9 in Big East they will be a lock.

Thanks for talking me down off the ledge re: Syracuse. Intellectually, I know we're fine, and realistically, we're mroe likely to finish 10-8 instead of 9-9, but I'll never forget that day in 07. Maybe I should have seen it coming a little more, but I was 100% convinced we were in and seeing the last team go up and realizing it wasn't us; that was pretty bad.

For as long as we have been doing this we can't remember a team being in more bracketologist brackets and then being left out like Syracuse in 2007. The only other team that comes to mind is Utah State about six years backed when they were ranked and didn't make it.

First, Michigan State. I know this is a projection and not based on the season ending now, but they are just hemorrhaging losses. I don't see how they've done anything to even separate themselves from other garbage teams like Michigan.

Secondly, while I don't doubt that Syracuse can make the tournament, I can't believe their seed line continues to be so high. You know they didn't play a single true road game out of conference where they were "perfect." Then they get in conference and proceed to lose 6 out of 8. One of the two wins in the middle of that streak was DePaul. I think Cuse is way overhyped and people are looking at the star power of their roster over what they've actually done.

I could say the same thing about MSU. If they didn't have Lucas and Summers, would a 10-loss Big Ten team with losses to Michigan and Iowa even get a look?

Yes, Alabama does deserve to be in. It just so happens that 5 of the 6 teams in the SEC East will be dancing. It doesn't matter that they beat Tennessee by 2. They still won. Anyone who has actually watched this team play will tell you how great they are defensively. To the poster who also said the SEC isn't a power conference, I guess having half of your conference going to the Big Dance isn't enough to be considered a power conference? Teams seeded at 3,4,5,7 not good enough for you?? Give me a bubble team that deserves it more than Alabama. I don't see one.

Yes they have lost 6 of 8; however only one of those losses was to a team that's not in the current field. (Seton Hall). They've lost to Pitt, Villanova, Marquette, Georgetown, and Lousville. Who are the teams that should be seeded ahead of them?

And yes, it does bother me that they play so few (this year, none) true road games OOC. But the conference is ridiculous this year. Even with losing 6 of 8, just in conference season, they've beaten a 2 seed (Notre Dame), 3 seed on the road (Uconn), a 7 seed on the road (St. Johns) and a 10 seed (Cincy). 3 wins against the RPI top 25.

The 6 seeds are Missouri, Temple, Arizona, and Xavier. Those 4 teams have combined for 2 wins against the RPI top 25.

The other 5 seeds are UNC, Texas A&M, and Kentucky. UK has 3 wins vs the RPI top 25, UNC has 1, A&M has 0.

Curious as to how you see Butler as the Horizon League auto-qualifier. Granted, two wins over Cleveland State, but they are behind CSU and Valpo, which means a very tough tourney path if things hold (top two seeded into semis). Granted I can't figure this conference from week-to-week (or even night-to-night), but am interested in the logic.

The winner of the Horizon tournament is anybody's guess at this point. We just think that Butler is the most talented team in the league and we like the fact that they seem to have righted the ship with four straight wins (including a victory at Cleveland State). If they win out, which we think they will, they could get the 2 seed and a bye to the semis.

They beat Kentucky by 2, not Tennessee. You needed overtime for that win. When your best win is Kentucky, a team who is .500 on the road, Tennessee which is a decent win but nothing to make or break a resume, and South Carolina? The same 13-10 South Carolina that resides in the cellar of the East, there is an issue. Those wins do not offset a horrendous OOC.

Sure, it might be good defensively (MIGHT, 81 to Vandy?) but the stats are inflated due to a weak conference.

When I talk about beating up on the little sisters of the week, Alabama's OOC schedule is *exactly* what I mean. But the fact that we are even talking about Alabama's profile day after day and week after week on here and the lack of obvious teams that are better then they are to fill those last bubble slots just goes to show you that this year has a terrible roster of teams.

Sometimes being the average looking girl at the ugly girl prom is enough to get a spot in the NCAA tournament. This is one of those years, and if mediocrity continues with the addition of slots to March Madness, perhaps we can expect plenty more where that comes from in years to come. I would still rather see a team like Harvard at least start to enter the "last 8 out" if they keep winning, because I have to hold my nose to think of many of these bubble at large teams.

Alabama being in is an absolute joke at this point. They have more losses against 100+ RPI teams than wins against teams in the RPI top 100. To say you can't find a team more suitable to be in the tournament is quite lazy, IMO. However, you're trying to sell me that a 8th place team in the 6th rated conference in the country with an RPI barely inside the top 100 deserves a tournament bid because they have 2 nice wins in conference? Ridiculous.

If they win a few more tough games in conference, fine, start talking about them as a tourney team, but don't put them in because they have a few good wins recently.

if duke runs the regular season table and gets to the acc final, there is no way that they are a 2 seed. the committee almost always rewards conference winners and a 2 or 3-loss duke is not going to get passed over for a 2nd place texas or kansas. it may not really matter because it may be duke being the 4th 1 seed against the lesser of texas/kansas as the 1st 2 seed.

Anonymous, if Kansas loses tonight and Pitt keeps on tearing up the brutal Big East, there's no way you can deny a Pitt team that has taken down Texas (which looks like it will win the Big 12) a #1 seed. If Duke wins out, including the ACC Tourney, the odds of them getting the fourth #1 are pretty solid over the #2 Big 12 team, I'd have to think. Either way, Pitt has done enough at this point to warrant a #1 seed. Winning the toughest conference in basketball ought to count for something.

There is so much talk about Alabama...The committee needs to punish teams who schedule such weak OOC games...Look at Cincinnati's resume...It must be bad if we are talking about them after a 14-0 start-Who did they play? Nobody who had a chance to them...

Pitt doesn't have to win out to get a #1 seed. They'd probably have to drop 2 more regular season games to get passed by Texas/Kansas and Duke. They're going to finish with more top 25 and top 50 wins than any other team in the country. Winner of best conference plus a non-conference win over Texas is going to get a one seed.

Kansas St's win is huge. If they finish 8-8 in conference and win a game in the Big 12 tourney, they're probably in. They still have to beat Nebraska on the road or Missouri at home to get there, and neither game is easy.

News out of Tallahassee is Chris Singleton should only be out 3-4 weeks which would get him back in time for the Tournament.

If FSU were to go 2-3 while he's out to finish at 10-6 in the ACC with an RPI around 60, would they get the benefit of the doubt if Singleton were to return for 1 ACC Tourney game to prove he's healthy?

Any chance for an at-large for a 30-3 Coastal Carolina team if they lose in the Big South final? I don't understand why Utah St. is an at-large possibility if Coastal Carolina isn't. USU's wins are just as unimpressive and their bad loss (Idaho) is worse than CCU's (Charleston).

George Mason is a 9 because we project that they'll wint he Colonial regular season title. They also have a top 25 RPI and have won 11 straight.

We like our at-large bids to have a little more meat on their schedules than Alabama does, but with a 68-team field, the resumes that get in are going to be uglier than ever. Our job is to ultimatle put our biases aside and predict what the committee will do, and we find it hard to be believe that they would leave a 12-win SEC team out.

Kansas State would be in the bracket if we did a new one today, but they are still no lock going forward. They have to get to 8-8 in conference, which means winning at Nebraska (tricky) or at home against Missouri. If we decide in our evaluations this weekend that they will do that, they'll be back in on Monday. What a performance, though, against the Jayhawks.

If Pitt wins the Big East regular season title (which is likely), then they are going to get a 1 seed. Duke's chances would then hinge on them beating out the Big XII No. 2, which looks like Kansas.

Harvard will definitely be in the mix for an at-large if they win out but lose to Princeton in an Ivy playoff game, but a lot of things would have to happen around the bubble to get them in. Fair or not, the Ivy is still the Ivy, and two bids out of the 15th rated conference might be a tough sell to some members of the committee.

We'll have to see how FSU plays this week without Singleton before we make any predictions about their long-term chances. Generally speaking, though, 11-5 will get them in, and 10-6 probably would too if they win one ACC tourney game and if Singleton is back healthy.

Even if they lose at St. Mary's, Utah State is in better shape to get an at-large than Coastal Carolina. Utah State has a much better RPI, they play in a better conference, and they have (for now at least) one Top 100 win.

Outside of Kansas, nobody has won @ Nebraska... If Nebraska wins 2 of 3 roadies at Oklahoma, Iowa St, Colorado and beats Mizzou and K State at home and plays Texas close... will that be enough as they would be above 500 in conference and it would solve their laughingstock road conference game streak...??

At what point does UNLV fall out of the bracket? They have a decent RPI and the good win against Kansas State (though Kansas State was missing a player and has fallen off since then.) However, they also already have five conference losses including the home loss to Colorado State.

They still have to travel to Colorado State and New Mexico and could very well lose both games. Additionally they have the bad home loss to UCSB.

I do not think they will win the conference tournament this year. For them to do that they would likely have to defeat New Mexico, San Diego State, and BYU. If they don't play BYU for the championship it would likely be Colorado State. Either way, UNLV has to endure a three day gauntlet against three good teams that they have not shown they can beat.

We can't take Nebraska seriously until they win a conference road game.

UNLV's seed has slipped a little lately, but they're still in good shape. You forgot to mention their OOC wins against Wisconsin (which is looking better by the day) and Virginia Tech. Those two wins, plus a win at Kansas State, give the Rebels a pretty solid OOC resume. As long as they finish 10-6 in conference, which means winning at New Mexico or at Colorado State, they'll be fine. If they lose both those games, they'll be on the bubble heading into the MWC tourney.

We have nothing against BYU; we just think Georgetown has a better resume right now. The Hoyas have four Top 25 wins (BYU has two), eight Top 50 wins (BYU has seven), and they've won eight straight games in the toughest league in the country. There's not much separating the teams too, but right now, we give the Hoyas the edge.

We respect Pomeroy's work, but we're not sure how he could predict Georgetown to lose to Cincinnati, who has a grand total of one quality Big East win and has recetly lost to West Virginia and St. John's at home, or at home to Syracuse, who is 3-6 over its last nine games. We wouldn't base your BYU argument on those projected results.

In that case, I am not sure I see why Vanderbilt is a seed line above Kentucky. Yes, the won at home, but I would be shocked if Kentucky dropped any of its home games this year. I think the two teams will have similar conference records, and Kentucky beat ND, Louisville, and Washington OOC. Doesn't that give them the edge?

When it comes to seeding teams at this point in the season 80% is based on what a team has done it this point of the season and the other 20% is based on what they may have ahead of them. The projecting ahead part comes into play more with picking teams to put in the bracket.

There really isn't too much difference between Vandy and UK at this point, but we gave Vandy the slight edge since they are a game better in conference and Kentucky has lost 3 of 4.

There Buy rs goldis not a lot of distinction between Vandy in addition to British at this time, although most of us provided Vandy this small borders considering they are a sport greater in meeting in addition to gw2 goldThe state of kentucky has lost 3 of four years old.

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